HOUSTON – The lead flight director for NASA’s first space shuttle mission this year, STS-117, will be available for satellite interviews from 6-8 a.m. CDT Friday, June 1.
STS-117 Lead Space Station Flight Director Kelly Beck, raised in Cahokia, Ill., will oversee a flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis. The flight continues construction of the International Space Station and brings a new crew member to orbit to begin a five-month stay and will return home a station resident who has been in orbit since December. Atlantis is targeted for launch at 6:38 p.m. CDT June 8 on an 11-day mission.
Beck will lead a team of flight directors, flight controllers, support personnel and engineering experts that will staff mission control in Houston, 24/7 during the mission. The ground control teams and spaceflight crews have used past missions’ experiences, both challenges and successes, as a guide for this next step in space station assembly. At least three spacewalks will be conducted during Atlantis’ flight.
Beck’s interviews will be conducted live via the NASA Television analog satellite. To participate, media must contact Tim Hinson at NASA’s Johnson Space Center newsroom, 281-483-5111, no later than 2 p.m. Thursday, May 31.
The NASA TV analog satellite is AMC-6, at 72 degrees west longitude; transponder 5C, 3800 MHz, vertical polarization, with audio at 6.8 MHz. For NASA TV downlink, schedule and streaming video information, visit:
For more information about STS-117 and its crew, visit: